Paul Redfern
7 March 2005
London — Up to Sh73 billion allegedly transferred abroad by influential officials in former President Moi's government "is sitting in London bank vaults", a leading UK newspaper said yesterday.
According to the Observer newspaper, the UK-based investigation company Kroll has given the figure as the amount spirited abroad by people close to the former President alone".
The Nation was, however, unable to track down anyone from Kroll to verify the report yesterday.
The issue of corruption in Kenya and from other African countries is likely to feature heavily in UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa report, due to be published this Friday.
The report is likely to say that corruption is one of the most important factors holding back Africa's development.
But it is unclear how exactly the report will affect Britain's attitude towards aid to Kenya, which reached £42 million (Sh6.1 billion) in the financial year 2003-2004 and maintained the UK's place as the country's largest donor.
Athough Britain has talked tough - notably through High Commissioner Edward Clay's hard-hitting speech on corruption last month - it has failed to join other EU and North American government's is slashing development assistance.
Moreover, UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, who visited Nairobi recently and was moved by the conditions he saw in the Kibera slum, is a strong supporter of the Narc government's policy of free primary education.
Until recently, Britain was a strong supporter of Nairobi and at one stage it had seemed likely that Kenya would be a major beneficiary of the UK's efforts to double aid to Africa.
The latest allegations in the Observer, coupled with files on corruption in Kenya, which are being studied in the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office, make future aid levels now seem uncertain.
Mr Brown said this weekend that fears of corruption should not be an excuse to do nothing in Africa.
"Our interest in Africa must start from the sense that something is wrong and it's an outrage that so many people are dying and suffering unnecessarily," he said.
The British chancellor suggests that responsibility for corruption in Africa should be shouldered not just by officials and politicians who take bribes, but by the western business community who offer them to secure lucrative contracts.
UK aid agencies have pointed out that Britain's record in prosecuting businesses that offered bribes was among the worst in the industrialised world.
Recently it was reported that none of the British firms involved in the systematic looting of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been charged and the UK, unlike the United States, has nothing similar to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which enables prosecution of American firms who bribe to get business.
The Observer says that "tens of billions of looted African cash is estimated to pass through Britain" each year and that "precious little money identified by British banks has been returned to African nations."
It adds that London is at present trying to delay a damaging report also due out this week from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which is expected to be highly critical of Britain's record in combating bribery to overseas government officials.
Mr Charles Abugre head of policy of the UK's Christian Aid described the UK government as being the worst of the G8 countries as far as returning cash to Africa was concerned. "Even Switzerland has a better record. UK subsidiaries based overseas are exempt from international anti-bribery legislation and are allowed to make so-called "facilitation" payments to secure contracts.'
But Mr Blair's office defended Britain's record saying that the UK "has been the driving force of imposing sanctions against corruption. Our legislation is as good as any legislation in the world."
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